Eagle House (suffragette's rest)

Eagle House
Eagle House in 2010
Eagle House (suffragette's rest) is located in Somerset
Eagle House (suffragette's rest)
Location within Somerset
General information
LocationBatheaston
CountryEngland, United Kingdom
Coordinates51°24′49″N 2°19′06″W / 51.41361°N 2.31833°W / 51.41361; -2.31833
DesignationsGrade II listed[1]

Eagle House is a Grade II* listed building in Batheaston, Somerset, near Bath.[2] Before World War I the house had extensive grounds.

When Emily Blathwayt and her husband Colonel Linley Blathwayt owned the house, its summerhouse was used, from 1909 to 1912, as a refuge for suffragettes who had been released from prison after hunger strikes. It became known as the Suffragette's Rest or Suffragette's Retreat. Emily Blathwayt was a suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union.

Between April 1909 and July 1911, trees were planted in the grounds to commemorate individual suffragettes; at least 47 were planted in a two-acre (8094 m2) site.[2] Known as Annie's Arboretum, after Annie Kenney, the trees were destroyed in the 1960s when a council estate was built. Only one tree, an Austrian Pine planted in 1909 by Rose Lamartine Yates, remains.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference list was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Historic England. "No. 71 (Eagle House) including balustrade 2 yards in front of south elevation (1115252)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  3. ^ Amphlett, D. G. (2014). Bath Book of Days. The History Press, pp. 179, 306.